AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

Cisco to Sell Faster Switch for Flood of Remote Data - The New York Times

Cisco Systems plans on Monday to introduce a network switch for corporations grappling with rapidly growing Internet data transfers and the increased use of applications that draw on remote data storage, known as cloud computing.

The switch, called the Nexus 7000, will provide a sharp increase in traffic capacity over the company’s current products, to 15 trillion bits of data a second.

Cisco, of San Jose, Calif., the world’s largest producer of network equipment, offered a range of examples to try to capture the significance of the increase in speed. It said the switch could transfer all 90,000 Netflix movies in 38.4 seconds or send a two-megapixel digital image to every human being on earth in 28 minutes.

Cisco has made a significant bet on the rapidly expanding data demands of the consumer Internet. Its Nexus system, which will eventually replace a product line that represents about a third of its $35 billion business, has required roughly $1 billion in research and development costs and the efforts of more than 500 engineers in the last four years, the company said.

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